The Bank of Portugal on Tuesday stuck to a decision to keep a loan linked to Goldman Sachs in a "bad bank" carved out after the rescue of Banco Espirito Santo (BES), putting the central bank and Goldman Sachs on course for a legal battle. The central bank said any remaining doubts could only be clarified in court. Goldman responded that it intended "to pursue all appropriate legal remedies without delay". The Wall Street bank and some of its clients lent BES $835 million in July last year using an entity it created called Oak Finance Luxembourg SA.

Petropavlovsk PLC suffered a blow Tuesday when an investment vehicle representing a sizable number of the Russia-focused gold miner’s shareholders said it would vote against the company’s financing package, which is aimed at staving off the threat of bankruptcy, The Wall Street Journal reported. Sapinda Holdings B.V. told the U.K.-listed miner that shareholders representing 10.7% of Petropavlovsk’s equity intend to vote against the company’s restructuring proposal after concluding that it unfairly favors bondholders over shareholders.

Caixabank of Spain issued a takeover bid on Tuesday for BPI, a Portuguese bank in which it was already the largest investor, in the latest chapter in the shake-up of Portugal’s banking sector, the International New York Times DealBook blog reported. The cash offer values BPI at 1.94 billion euros, or $2.21 billion, meaning that the takeover would be worth €1.08 billion if Caixabank ends up with 100 percent of the equity. The bid represents a 27 percent premium over the Portuguese bank’s closing share price on Monday.

A crucial meeting of eurozone finance ministers over the future of Greece’s bailout broke down in acrimony on Monday after Athens angrily rejected the bloc’s insistence that it agree to complete its current €172bn rescue as “absurd” and “unacceptable,” the Financial Times reported. It is the second time in five days that negotiations between the new anti-austerity Greek government and its eurozone creditors have collapsed and it means Athens, whose public finances are deteriorating fast, could soon be left with no European financial backstop.

The Bank of Portugal has trimmed down the list of potential bidders for Novo Banco - the successor to Banco Espirito Santo after a state rescue - saying that 15 out of 17 institutions that had expressed interest in the sale met its requirements, Reuters reported. The central bank said in a statement on Monday it asked the 15 pre-qualified institutions to sign a confidentiality agreement, after which they will have until March 20 to present non-binding offers. It did not provide any names or details.

Minister for Finance Michael Noonan has dismissed comments made by the former IMF chief of mission to Ireland, that the Irish government blew an opportunity to get a debt writedown deal. Ashoka Mody, the former IMF mission chief, said Ireland should have gotten a superior deal in 2011, the Irish Times reported. Speaking on Newstalk’s Lunchtime programme Monday, Mr Mody said Ireland had its opportunity.

In recent weeks Denmark’s fixed exchange-rate regime has come under extreme strain, as moves by the European Central Bank have caused the value of the euro to plummet, the International New York Times reported. That has led to grave concern here, as speculators bet that Denmark’s currency peg to the euro will break, giving them outsize profits on the Danish assets they hold as the crown rises in value. For the Danes, however, breaking the crown-euro peg could be an economic catastrophe.

Ukraine’s $40 billion international bailout plan and cease-fire agreement are paving the way for the government to start debt restructuring talks with creditors, Bloomberg News reported. The International Monetary Fund-led package comprises of some $27 billion in aid from multinational lenders and foreign governments, as well as about $13 billion from Ukrainian“debt operations,” Finance Minister Natalie Jaresko said in an interview on Thursday.

The European Central Bank has extended another €5bn in emergency loans to banks in Greece, following fears that a spate of withdrawals could leave lenders in the country short of funding, the Financial Times reported. The ECB decision, made after a call with members of its governing council on Thursday, came as Alexis Tsipras, Greek prime minister, took his case for a new financial rescue deal to an EU summit in Brussels.

On 4 December 2014, the EU Council reported that it had endorsed a compromise agreement reached with the European parliament on the proposed regulation amending Council Regulation (EC) 1346/2000 on insolvency proceedings, aka the insolvency regulation. The announcement came after more than two years of evaluations, reports and ongoing discussions with the legislating bodies of the EU; it marks the final chapter in a drive to reform the insolvency regulation, economia reported in an analysis.